Teh Suck! Teh Suck!

It's the kickoff of week two on the NaNo calendar, when all those exuberant plans turn to suck. This is why you spend the first week building up a wordcount buffer, so Week Two can come by and consume it nom nom nom-style. I wrote a post on the Brigade topic about powering through this week. tl;dr version: just write anything, and count everything you write. And for the love of the Rhino, don't worry about what you've already written. There is no such thing as "continuity" in the first draft (or quality, or pacing) so if you're fretting about these things, stop right now, and write instead. Write about the fretting, even. I'm writing this on Saturday night, dosed up on cold medication and hot tea, on the cusp of the end of summer time and theoretically an extra hour of sleep (or writing. Let's not kid ourselves.) Plotwise, I'm about to step into that great unknown void in the middle of my story, where I know the characters need to get from point A to B, but I'm a little blurry on the specifics in between, and how some planned scenes fit into the schedule. The transitions will be rough and random, but I know I'll be able to smooth them out later, when I can breathe and look at the novel as a whole. That time is not now. Now it's time to embrace the suck, and move on, always on.

...and begin!

Is it bad form to start writing with a 5am blast from an air horn? (Past experience says: yes.)

Good luck, fellow Wrimos. May your muse be cooperative and your rhino tamed. I'm going to take a typecasting/social networking hiatus for the duration, though I may slip in an UJTU* now and again. I'll post mini blurbs on The Twitter if anyone is so inclined to follow @mpclemens: 140 characters may all be I'm willing to spare for a while.

See you on the other side, Wrimos!

* Patented Little Flower Petals "Update Just To Update"

The Company I Keep

I was having a little discussion with someone on The Twitter today, recommending (again!) Anne Lamott's Bird by Bird as a great resource for writers, would-be writers, and the easily frustrated of either type. The chapter on Shitty First Drafts (PDF) should be required reading, every single November. I know that whenever I pick up my copy of the book, I wind up going back and re-reading the whole thing from the start. Every year I get more out of it.

Anyhow, the Twitter chat made me realize that I don't think I've ever collected all the titles in one place, though I know I've discussed them before. So, here's the contents of my "sage writing advice" shelf.




In photo order:

• Zen in the Art of Writing, Ray Bradbury
  To be honest, not my favorite of the bunch, but it comes praised by many. Perhaps you'll get more out of it than I did?
• The Elements of Style, Strunk and White
  Because I can never remember how to do quotes. Also, because I am trying to become one with the philosophy of cutting surplus words, if not in this blog, then at least in my writing.
• The Moon & I, Betsy Byars
  Hilarious, unless you are snake-averse. Then probably seriously creepy. Writing advice disguised as autobiographical stories.
• Self Editing for Fiction Writers, Browne & King
  The book so nice I braved the vultures circling Borders books to get my own copy. Makes a good argument for putting the extra effort into revisions of your own work, and gives real-life examples. My post-NaNo Sherpa. I reviewed this one earlier, though you may also want to check out Bell's The Artful Edit and Lyon's Manuscript Makeover. I preferred the Browne & King book.
  
• No Plot? No Problem!, Chris Baty
  The pre-NaNo Sherpa. I picked this up after my first year of NaNo. Certainly not the most serious book, but then NaNo isn't the most serious creative endeavor, either. Baty's novel aftercare advice about summarizing scenes on index cards inspired my current pre-noveling process.
• Eats, Shoots & Leaves, Lynne Truss
  If your blood pressure ticks up a notch every time you see an abused apostrophe, read this. Funny for Type "A" personalities like yours truly. Obnoxious to everyone else, probably. Read immediately after (or in parallel with) Strunk & White.
• Writing Down the Bones, Natalie Goldberg
  Slightly hippy-trippy compared to the others in the stack, but her mantra -- keep your hand moving, always moving across the page -- is invaluable advice.
• Steering the Craft, Ursula K. Le Guin
  Meant more as a workbook than a read-from-cover-to-cover work. Le Guin does get into discussions of taking criticism in a peer writing group, which is the only book I've found that does this. Type "A" people need all the advice we can get about accepting criticism gracefully and silently.
• On Writing, Stephen King
  Also largely autobiographical, and King has led a colorful (and medicated) life. Solid advice, though, from someone who knows how to make popular, readable work. Also: a sample of before-and-after edited work.
• Bird by Bird, Anne Lamott
  Still among the very best in the pile, in my opinion, especially for writing-and-life advice. So many books that I've read were very dry, highbrow, academic books written by Serious Authors Crafting Serious Art. This is not those books, thank goodness. This is the one that gets me back in the NaNo frame of mind every year. After reading it, I'm excited about writing something terrible and bloated and meandering and occasionally surprising and subtle and wonderful.

Now obviously, one or more of these books simply won't do it for you. (Hopefully you are not also a planning-obsessed control freak, 'cause this here blog ain't big enough for the both of us...) If you're looking for some advice from smart people, though, you could do worse than this stack of paper.

Occupy Your Brain

Dictated to the italic 1958 Olympia SM3

Speak and be heard

Obviously, there are issues in the text. A few dropped words here and there, and "nano rhino" is an excellent malapropism. I would prefer numbers and ordinals to be spelled out ("2 daughters", "but 1st"). Frankly, I haven't even begun to plumb the depths of the documentation. This feels like it could be a configuration option somewhere. I'm also not sure how to introduce capitalization in the middle of a sentence, though the software is clever enough to pick up some proper nouns on its own: Google, and Elizabeth, and its own name.

Speaking of names, there was a question of how it would do with proper names, especially when dealing with character names. Elizabeth suggested using uncommon substitute words in the text ("rutabaga") and then running a find/replace operation afterwards. This isn't a bad idea. Just to test things, here's a list of baby names in the U.S., pulled from the Social Security Administration's web site:

Popularity	Male name	Dictated	Different?	Female name	Dictated	Different?
1	Jacob	Jacob		Isabella	Isabella
2	Ethan	Ethan		Sophia	Sophia
3	Michael	Michael		Emma	Emma
4	Jayden	Jason	Yes	Olivia	Olivia
5	William	William		Ava	Ava
6	Alexander	Alexander		Emily	Emily
7	Noah	Noah		Abigail	Abigail
8	Daniel	Daniel		Madison	Madison
9	Aiden	Stephen	Yes	Chloe	Chloe
10	Anthony	Anthony		Mia	Nina	Yes
100	Brian	Brian		Rachel	Rachel
101	Bentley	Bentley		Mya	Maye	Yes
102	Alejandro	Alejandra	Yes	Rylee	Riley	Yes
103	Sean	Sean		Katelyn	Caitlin	Yes
104	Nolan	Nolan		Ellie	Ellie
105	Riley	Riley		Isabelle	Isabel	Yes
106	Kaden	Kayden,	Yes	Vanessa	Vanessa
107	Kyle	L	Yes	Lilly	Lily	Yes
108	Micah	Mica	Yes	London	London
109	Vincent	Vincent		Mary	Mary
110	Antonio	Antonia	Yes	Kennedy	Kennedy
250	Corbin	Corbin		Alondra	A longer	Yes
251	Simon	Simon		Jazmin	jazzman	Yes
252	Clayton	Clayton		Breanna	Rihanna	Yes
253	Myles	Miles	Yes	Quinn	Quinn
254	Xander	Xander		Christina	Christina
255	Dante	Dante		Kyla	Kyler	Yes
256	Erik	Eric	Yes	Adalyn	paddling	Yes
257	Rafael	Rafael		Fiona	Fiona
258	Martin	Martin		Kaydence	cadence	Yes
259	Dominick	Dominick		Allyson	Alison	Yes

In general, it did better than I expected, and may do better still with additional training on my part. Homophones will surely give the software fits, though. It claims to be context-aware, which may be why it did so well on these name lists. But unless you're planning on writing about a longer jazzman named Breanna Jazmin, search/replace should be your friend.

Bannation For The Win

One month to NaNoWriMo, and I have had a brilliant idea. October first marks the end of this year's national Banned Books Week, a time to think about all the books that have been denounced due to theme or content or because they upset one group or another. The local library and bookstores always set up a big display of the titles. "READ A BANNED BOOK TODAY" they say.

Guys, this is a total win.

Having trouble thinking up ideas for your book this year? Totally aim to get on the banned list. With a little work on your part, you can be sure that somebody, somewhere, will be upset enough to make a big public stink about it. Maybe, if you're lucky, they'll even hold a bonfire. Bonfires make great TV.

Struggling with being literary? Having trouble being refined and classy? Pfft. Write something titillating or shocking or just plain depraved and wait for fame to come knocking.

Getting Smashed

We're not above the vast sums, I should say. Too many negatives, not enough mental capacity. Please read the following understanding that Mr. Speegle and I are greed-driven beings, all the way down the withered, charred stumps that used to be our souls. Raising children will do this to you.
 


Pretty much the most awesome typeface ever, on an Olympia SM3 from 1958

Wayfinding

I'm shepherding a group of NaNo newbies this year, first timers making their trek through November. This is my third go-round, which I suppose makes me the grizzled old veteran around these parts. One of the newbies (a co-worker) just stopped me in the break room and said "you know, I was working on my story last night, and it's been hard work, and then all of a sudden it just took on its own life."

I know the feeling well. I like that we have this month-long excuse to be silly and self-indulgent and take a tilt at the "novelist" windmill. I joked on the NaNo forums that I'm addicted to the word count rush -- my competitive nature again, surely -- and that I'm just chugging along with the story because in my head, it's already done. I'm just filling in the gaps.

Let me try an extended analogy here. Around springtime, I'm standing on the plains, just kind of looking around the mental landscape for interesting features. I've recovered from the previous November, and I'm starting to think about that next great story journey. Out on the horizon, I can see something -- hills, maybe, or trees, or rocks. It's hard to tell from here, but they look interesting, and I make a note about them on an index card and start walking in their general direction.

It's a long walk: months long, in fact, and all too often I need to take my eyes away to attend to something or other in my waking life -- work, kids, pets, whatever. But those features are still there, out on the horizon. I can make out shapes if I look long enough. I can start seeing the high points, and I can see the gaps in-between. It looks like mountains. I'm still walking, making notes, and details are starting to appear. A tree line, or the way a cloud breaks over a peak. I start thinking about the path I'll be taking, the way over and around and through those mountains, when I finally reach them.

By the time I get to their feet, it's October. Now I'm so close, I can only see the surface. The peaks are clear, but the valleys are hidden, and the path is mysterious. I know the big landmarks -- I spotted those weeks ago -- but I'm still not sure of the path through. I set up camp by the mountain, the start of the range. I'm eager to start, eager to set out and explore.

November comes, and I can finally start climbing! The low, round foothills are the easiest, and I meander my way up, up, up. The peaks are coming into view, as are the paths that lead to them. I'm still heading for my landmarks: I know that they'll see me through if I just stop to orient myself now and then. I'll get to the other side in the end, exhausted and weary surely, surprised and amused maybe. The way was twisted and turned, the path was tangled at times or unclear. It lead me down into hidden vales, and up along steep climbs, and sometimes an exhilarating headlong rush downhill, my feet barely able to keep up. But I have been climbing before; I know what to expect, and I know what I can do. I am not the most graceful, the most skilled wayfinder in the mountains, but I am getting better with each climb.